Werner saving Marie-Laure's life

[anthonywang]

Why do you think Marie-Laure doesn't tell Werner's sister, Jutta that Werner saved Marie-Laure's life?

[eliasrust]

I think that she didn't tell Jutta that Werner saved her life because she doesn't want to relive it. She had tried to forget her past for awhile, and she had moved on. When Jutta gave her back the house, all those emotions (sadness, fear, confusion) came flooding back to her. She doesn't want to relive that very stressful moment of her life, and she doesn't want to create more drama between her and Jutta. Chances are, Jutta would try to get more details about her brother and what happened on the battlefield, and Maurie-Laure can't relive all of that stress.

[anthonywang]

I think the scene between between Marie-Laure and Werner's sister at the end of the book is unsatisfying because it actually is very realistic. I think the scene between Marie-Laure and Werner's sister at the end of the book is unsatisfying because it actually is very realistic. We want these two women to see their kinship, talk on and on about Werner, and the broadcasts. But the reality was, they were strangers connected only by Werner, whom Marie-Laure had met once thirty years before. It was Werner who had seen her at the boulangerie and had connected her to the reading of the Jules Verne book, and it was he who had developed romantic feeling for her while trapped. We want Marie-Laure to have instantly come to the same romantic place as Werner, and to have remembered it for thirty years. But her regrets and grief were probably more focused on her father. Her continuing need for answers concerned her father. While Jutta needed much more closure concerning her brother's life and death.Besides, Marie-Laure's life had become great - brilliant career, daughter, she wasn't living in the past. So when the little boy interrupted the conversation, there wasn't enough there for Marie- Laure to make an effort to overcome Juta's polite withdrawal and continue the conversation. It was the end of the day, she wanted to go home, and she wanted to be alone to look at this powerful symbol of the past-the little house. I bet this is just what would have happened in a real situation full of unequal emotions and awkwardness.